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In 1987, Microsoft purchased a company called Forethought, Inc., which was a
developer of presentation software. Renamed and packaged as part of the
Microsoft Office software suite, PowerPoint now boasts more than 30 million
presentations created each day. Not bad for a once little-known presentation
software!

The PowerPoint of today provides a vast array of powerful tools that enable
you to create effective presentations. PowerPoint 2002 works especially well in
a group environment, making it easy to work together as a team with online
collaboration tools.

Even with all the great features that PowerPoint has to offer, there are
other factors to consider if you find yourself polishing and preparing your
presentations in an off-site location. Whether you're part of a production
team creating the magic behind the scenes for a number of seminar speakers, or
you're one of many presenters at a worldwide corporate conference, this
article is for you.

I provide you with several essential and road-tested tips for PowerPoint
presentation preparation in off-site locations, both in country and abroad.

Understand Your Paper Requirements

Printing PowerPoint slides is a must if your resulting media are overheads;
or for proofing purposes, especially when a large group of both presenters and
production staff is involved.

If your project keeps you in country, paper is not a huge problem, unless you
find yourself in a small village on a country road. Most cities have office
supply stores in which you can pick up every flavor of paper.

If your project takes you to international locations, the quest for paper
takes on new meaning. Depending on where you end up, don't expect office
supply stores to be readily available. It may take a little more effort to find
reams of paper.

If all else fails in your quest, try a local Kinkos. You can find Kinkos in
many international cities. Most of the time, the sales crew is happy to oblige
your offer to purchase a ream or two of paper. Your hotel's business center
is another good source for paper.

And let's not forget that almost every country in the world except ours
uses A4 paper size, so the chances of your locating 81/2 x 11 paper are slim to
none.

With that in mind, you'll want to keep these PowerPoint steps handy:

Select File, Page Setup. The Page Setup window is displayed.

Select A4 Paper from the Slides sized for pull-down list.

Click OK. All slides in the current presentation are resized for A4. You
must follow these steps for each PowerPoint presentation you plan to print to A4
paper size.

After each slide is resized, objects may move to accommodate new page sizing.
Check each slide before going on a printing spreecontents may not scale
uniformly, and imported graphics can appear stretched or squeezed.

To avoid these problems altogether, consider designing presentations from the
onset with A4 size in mind before you take PowerPoint projects on the
international road.

And don't forget, if you're printing black-and-white proofs, use
PowerPoint's View, Black and White feature to show you ahead of time what a
black-and-white hard copy of a color presentation will look like. For printing
color slides to black-and-white hard copy, select File, Print and then click the
check box next to Pure black and white.